This invention relates to breaking of solid materials, such as rock, with an electron beam, and particularly to a method of mining rock utilizing a high energy electron beam to fracture the rock.
The mining of rock by conventional methods has been limited as to the rate and cost of production of rock rubble by the slow and laborious steps of sequential drilling, blasting, and mucking. Furthermore, there are obvious dangers inherent in drilling and blasting of rock. The noise and air pollution factors also present restrictions and problems. Blasting normally produces large pieces that must be broken up, and the capital and operating costs of machinery to break up the rock into desired sizes are high. The machinery is also subject to inexorable wear and failure of the moving parts and erosion and frequent replacement of the parts which contact and break the rock.